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Founding Member of Pussy Riot Detained in Moscow

By Melena Ryzik June 12, 2015 3:26 pmJune 12, 2015 3:26 pm

Photo

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a founding member of the Russian activist group Pussy Riot, was detained in Moscow on Friday after setting up a brief protest performance in Bolotnaya Square.Credit Evgeny Feldman

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a founding member of the activist group Pussy Riot, was detained along with another activist, Ekaterina Nenasheva, in Moscow on Friday, after setting up a brief protest performance in Bolotnaya Square, a central area where in 2012 thousands demonstrated in opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin.

Ms. Tolokonnikova, an outspoken critic of the Putin administration, was joining Ms. Nenasheva, who had aimed to spend 30 days going about her life while wearing a Russian prison uniform, as a statement against incarceration and the treatment of female inmates. June 12 is a national holiday known as Russia Day, and is Ms. Nenasheva’s 18th day of being dressed as a prisoner; the women arrived in Bolotnaya Square, carrying a sewing machine and intending to stitch a Russian flag with the slogan “Prison Camp Russia.”

In a statement, Ms. Tolokonnikova said she was wearing the same uniform she was issued in the nearly two years she spent in Russian prison camps after being convicted of hooliganism for a short performance in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in 2012.

In a series of photos documenting the action and posted online on Friday afternoon, the women, in headscarves and the boxy uniforms, are seen arriving in the square with the sewing machine, stools, fabric and thread, and spreading out panels of red, white and blue cloth – the colors of the Russian flag. But they barely had time to pick up a needle before they attracted the attention of the Russian police, who pulled the women to their feet and put them onto a police bus. On her Facebook page, Ms. Tolokonnikova posted Ms. Nenasheva’s statement for her project, called “Don’t Be Afraid,” along with selfies of each of them inside the police bus.

Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said through a spokeswoman that the women were being held in a police station near the square. In a statement to the Russian news agency Interfax the police said they had been detained for disturbing public order.

In a series of Twitter posts Ms. Tolokonnikova said the Russian policemen who surrounded them had demanded that they take off their prison uniforms – which they did not – and said that while they were being held supporters had illegally brought them ice cream (she and Ms. Nenasheva are seen eating popsicles).

In recent months, Ms. Tolokonnikova and her fellow Pussy Riot founder Maria Alyokhina, who was arrested along with Ms. Tolokonnikova in 2012, have been in high demand as speakers internationally – later this month, they are scheduled to be a part of the Glastonbury music festival in England – and have met with artists, politicians and appeared as themselves on an episode of “House of Cards.”